


A Poem in Red

by awritingbowtie



Category: orignal work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 05:55:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2377280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awritingbowtie/pseuds/awritingbowtie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trying out a much darker style than usual, feedback incredibly welcome. A duel between two Kings of opposing Kingdoms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Poem in Red

    "You'd see this land painted red to paint your throne gold," the Poet King wiped the blood from his eyes and readied his blade.  
  
    "I never did like green," the Red King's smile split with his sanity. His morningstar hung lazily by his side, some spikes missing and the rest drenched red. The crowd looked on in silent anticipation. They had long since dropped their weapons to watch their kings duel. The Red King was known by that name for reasons he'd demonstrated time and time again, and intended to demonstrate once more. He had removed his helmet halfway through the battle to better see the bloodshed, and had the skills to not need it anyway. He'd led the vanguard, and broken clean through the charge from the Poet King.  
  
    He'd been defending. He was the vanguard. He carved bloody rivers through the ranks of the Poet King, and intended to broaden the current further.  
  
    The Poet King had no spectacular feats in combat to his name; the most remarkable thing of his rule was a three year period of great intellectual development and economic prosperity prior to the invasion by the Red King. His war was that of defense and necessity, until a few lucky, decisive victories. It was this battle, however, the Red King himself had arrived. And arrive he did.  
  
    The Poet King was, he had discovered, a skillful warrior himself. But the Red King had songs of fear and reverence to his name before he was even fully grown.  
  
    And there they stood. The Red King, his full body armor pitted, scarred, and drenched in crimson. The Poet King, his artisan crafted blade chipped and nearly dull, scarlet as the dyed cloth he'd worn over his chain armor depicting his insignia: a black rose.  
  
    The Red King broke the tension as brutally as he did the bones of countless men, bounding at the Poet King and shattering his shield in a single swing of his morningstar. The Poet King rolled with the blow, slashing at the Red King's neck. He barely moved to dodge, bringing the morningstar back up in a vicious arc, connecting cleanly with the Poet King's sword arm armpit, nearly ripping it off. He barely had the time to let out a cry of pain before the Red King brought it down once more upon his head, embedding a spike down though the top of it, a bit of the point just barely protruding from beneath his jaw. He let go of the morningstar, and watched the Poet King collapse at his feet.  
  
    He picked up the sword of the slain King, and looked into the overcast sky, his head thrown back. He began to giggle. Before long, he was doubled over in silent laughter. He dropped to his knees and looked at the assembled crowd, still cackling. They were backing away slowly, even his own men had quickened their pace. "He said I'd paint the land red. WOULD ANY OF YOU CHALLENGE MY VISION AS AN ARTIST?"  
  
    At this point, those at the edge of the crowd sprinted in any direction they could find. The distinction between men of the Red King and Poet King blurred as they broke rank to run. Those with pikes silently arranged themselves in a circle around the King. He was still piercing the air with his laughter as he was pierced with pikes from every side. The wicked sound mixed with coughing and gagging as the life faded, but the insanity lingered in the scene that remained.  
  
    The Red King knelt, suspended by the five pikes buried through him and into the ground. His face, turned towards the sky, still bore his obscene smile etched into it as permanently as into the retinas of all those who had seen it. His piercing steel eyes were still open to the point where none could tell if he had ever had eyelids. In his right hand was the sword of the Poet King, held in a death grip that none would dare try to pry, lest he rise again out of malice that any would disrupt his perfect end.


End file.
